Electrifying

Electrifying

The aim is to encourage creative thinking to develop or refine existing solutions to the practice challenge.

1. The teacher asks the students to pair up with someone who likes the same actor as them.  The students then carry out the activity in these pairs. 
2. The teacher tells the students to imagine their challenge as a physical object and then ‘electrify’ it.   This also applies if the challenge is a situation.  For example, if the challenge concerns making dining in a restaurant a more pleasurable experience, then the floor could be perceived as an object which could become ‘electrified’ creating new functions as a result.
3. The teacher asks the students to continue the exercise by considering which new functions the object could have if it became ‘electrified’.
4. The students write down their individual ideas on post-its and place them on the whiteboard.
5. The teacher stops the exercise after approximately 7 minutes.
6. The students review all the post-its and identify the most appropriate solutions.

‘Electrifying the Object’ is particularly useful at the beginning of the creative idea generation process. However, this activity may take some training in lateral/creative thinking before it is attempted.
The activity could be done using online tools such as Padlet, virtual whiteboard and breakout rooms in Teams/Zoom.